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Molly Ball

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December 22, 2014 As you may have heard, 2014 was a good year for Republicans. They won a lot of elections! They won big elections and small elections, elections in red states and elections in blue states, elections everyone knew they would win and elections virtually no one expected them to win. They ...

November 5, 2014 LOUISVILLE, Ky.—Republicans took the Senate majority in a commanding sweep on Tuesday, winning nearly every contested race across the country, gaining governor's mansions and adding to their majority in the House of Representatives. For weeks, pundits had debated the semantics of what would constitute a "wave" election, but when it ...

September 19, 2014 Everywhere Hillary Clinton goes, a thousand cameras follow. Then she opens her mouth, and nothing happens. Clinton made a much-ballyhooed appearance in Iowa over the weekend, giving a speech widely noted for its substancelessness. She “had no explicit message of her own,” Politico noted, while The Economist pronounced it “underwhelming.” ...

August 27, 2014 The last government shutdown, almost a year ago, was no fun for anyone. Republicans in the House and Senate demanded that legislation to fund the government simultaneously defund Obamacare; Democrats refused to go along. In the ensuing 16-day stalemate, many functions of the federal government were forced to shutter. Federal ...

August 27, 2014 The last government shutdown, almost a year ago, was no fun for anyone. Republicans in the House and Senate demanded that legislation to fund the government simultaneously defund Obamacare; Democrats refused to go along. In the ensuing 16-day stalemate, many functions of the federal government were forced to shutter. Federal ...

July 17, 2014 Rand Paul sure seems to enjoy getting into it with his fellow Republicans. This week, the Kentucky senator has been feuding with Rick Perry, the governor of Texas, who decried Paul’s “isolationism” in a weekend op-ed. Paul promptly and tartly fired back, saying of Perry, “Apparently his new glasses haven’t ...

July 17, 2014 Rand Paul sure seems to enjoy getting into it with his fellow Republicans. This week, the Kentucky senator has been feuding with Rick Perry, the governor of Texas, who decried Paul’s “isolationism” in a weekend op-ed. Paul promptly and tartly fired back, saying of Perry, “Apparently his new glasses haven’t ...

April 23, 2014 A few years ago, Chicago residents accustomed to parking on the street got a rude shock. Parking-meter rates had suddenly gone up as much as fourfold. Some meters jammed and overflowed when they couldn't hold enough change for the new prices. In other areas, new electronic meters had been installed, ...

March 3, 2014 Vice President Joe Biden's speech to the Democratic National Committee on Thursday included a paean to long shots and lost causes. "Everything I've ever done in my career that I consider worthwhile—from the Violence Against Women Act to the crime bill to helping get us out of Iraq—it took time," ...

November 27, 2013 Welcome to the Thanksgiving Wednesday news dump, Obamacare edition. The administration was set to announce a one-year delay of the online health insurance exchanges for small businesses on Wednesday, meaning employers with staffs of 50 or under need to work with an insurance broker to buy employee coverage. As The ...